THis is an "OK" book. Even though I know most of the stories in the book....I believe it did a good job in trying to introduce parts of Ethiopia many folks wouldn't know.:)

John Graham obviously has a profound amount of affection and respect for Ethiopia. It's history, culture and joie de vivre. I'm not sure many Anglo-North Americans have thought about Ethipoia as a vacation destination, but Graham's description of dance bars in the big city, 2000 year old churches, and bustling villages and markets Make it seem far more real than the stereotypes we are used to.

Not that Graham makes it seem like the easiest place to travel, but he quickly gets way, way beyond the big-bellied child and desperate, doe-eyed mother of World Vision imagery to a nation of dignity and depth. The author understands the issues and includes things like when to trust a 'guide' and when not to. As the area's Program Director of Save the Children, he obviously knows what he's talking about, but he also makes it very clear that this mature nation has a wealth of experience to shareand expresses a deep committment to the real people of Ethiopia.

Graham's good, edging on sarcastic, humour makes this book an easy read. (The chapter about hitting a pedestrian walks the line between humour and horror with amzing balance). Whether you're planing a trip or not, this book should be picked up by anyone interested in history, religion, Africa, or working overseas. I wasn't even planning a trip, but I'm eager to find an opportunity as soon as I can.

... think "lots of highly intelligent people with recognizable names give their best parting words of advice to graduates"... it reads like quick snippets from commencement addresses that these people may well have given at some point. The words are true and often poetic and full of hope for aspiring young people. The phrase "sage advice" wants to work its way in here somewhere. What I wonder is... is this a book that young graduates will WANT to read? I appreciate it as a resource to offer with students I work with, but I'm also 5 years out... I'm sure I would not have picked this up to read straight through at 21. If you sat through your own graduation speaker, chances are you don't have a burning need to read through 15 more mini-speeches that offer the same basic "make your mark on the world" challenge. This is the book parents and well-wishers give to grads, though I'm not sure they're gonna read, so that's why I gave it 4 stars.

I haven't even read this book and I know it's good. How do I know? Because Madeline L'Engle's in it!

This review compares the Rough Guides Portugal (9th ed.) with Lonely Planet Portugal (2nd ed.).

We just returned from 2.5 weeks in Portugal. This was our first trip to Portugal and we took and used extensively the Portugal books from Lonely Planet and Rough Guide. We didn't visit the Algarve or Alentejo, concentrating on Lisbon and north.

Both books were good, but overall we preferred the Rough Guide book. It was better organized and more up to date. It's writing was more incisive, lively, and witty.

Here are some details as I saw them:

LP maps often covered a wider area and had more detail than the RG maps, but they were in smaller type and often difficult to read. On more than one occassion a cab driver pulled out his spectacles to read the LP map.

Rough Guide had more up to date phone numbers. LP did not have the up to date area codes (the leading 0 has been changed to a 2). In addition, for many properties in the north they had a 5 digit phone number, when now they are all six. More disturbingly, they have no update on their website for either the corrected area code or phone numbers. In fact, there was no Portugal update to the guide at all. (I'm not talking of the 'unverified travelers' reports.)

LP provided more detailed information about the nitty-gritty details of traveling, e.g., money, trains, internet access, etc.

RG presented the towns around Aveiro better. It was through it that we learned of Sao Jacinto, Torreira, and so on. These were not indexed in LP. We didn't discover that LP had some information on them until much later because it was more hidden in the Aveiro section. Since we had already decided to not stay in Aveiro we didn't think to look there. Although they were also in the Aveiro section of RG, they had their own headings and were also indexed.

Similarly, RG highlighted Belmonte in the mountains. This town was interesting in itself and also in that it now holds one of Portugal's largest remaining Jewish communities and its new synogogue. Jews had previously worshipped secretly in a town house until 1974, now replaced by the new building. (I'm writing this using a mouse pad I purchased at the Belmonte castle for $1.50 with images of columns from the Mosteiro da Batalha!)

I also preferred RG's treatment of Parque Natural da Serra da Estrela and of Parque Natural de Montesinho.

We used several recommendations for restaurants and accommodations from the books. Their batting averages were about the same: good but not great. One African dance club listed in both books was now a female stip place, as my wife discovered when seeing if the cab had taken us to the right address. (I was waiting in the cab.) I felt they were generally too generous in their evaluation of hotels and restaurants.

Both books had several failings common to them and to other guide books that we've used.

Nearly all the accommodations and restaurants are in tourist areas. We were fortunate to stay in Lisbon in a residential district. It was comforting to leave in the morning and not be surrounded by hordes of fellow tourists. Similarly, we were the only obvious tourists in the local restaurants, some of which were excellent. Nor were we out in the sticks where a car was required. We were right off the #28 tram line, recommended as the best tram to ride simply for riding it in both books.

Several other times during the trip we stayed and ate outside the centro area. In some cases a car would have been needed, but we were only several km out of center. In any case, I think both books should offer more 'out of centro' possibilities, especially when transportation is available.

LP is out front in saying that its reviewers do not stay at all the hotels or eat at all the restaurants they list. I would like it if the reviews would be initialized with the reviewers initials for the ones that they personally tried. This would also allow us to see and evaluate each reviewer's tastes and standards as our trip progressed, not to mention to see which places they really tried. One LP writer (not an author of this book) in discussing restaurants wrote: "As one of those LP writers I can tell you that it is not physically possible to eat even a 'little bit of a meal' in each of those restaurants :-) What we all tend to do is eat at a broad cross-section within the norms of natural eating times and visit the other restaurants and talk to the owner or even the diners if it can be done discretely. In the same vein we don't sleep at every hotel!"

Talk to the owners! Now there's something for an unbiased, disinterested evaluation!

Both books are oriented to train travelers, but they should have some more info on driving too, which is not expensive. For example, neither had a mileage chart between major cities and, more importantly, neither had a chart of expected driving times. Using the 'N' roads which look like major highways can take quite a bit of time because they are mostly two lane roads, often twisty and hilly, and can have a lot of SLOW truck traffic. You'd probably be better off driving on the back roads, both for time and scenery, and for that small village, local feel. But you'd never know it from these books. This complaint isn't restricted to just LP and RG, of course.

In addition, both books were quite short on history, culture and demographics. How religious are the Portuguese? (We were asked on several occassions whether we were 'religioso'.) What is the median and mean income of each of the areas (even of Portugal as a whole) and how does this compare to the rest of western Europe. What are contemporary middle-class Portuguese characteristics?

It wouldn't have taken more than an additional 10 or 15 pages for such information, and it would have made our trip more meaningful.

In sum, again, both guides were good with room for improvement, with our preferring the Rough Guide overall.

I have been to Portugal countless times and just like the country itself, the Rough Guide to Portugal never ceases to amaze me. This book is the perfect guide - light enough to carry around in a purse and yet absolutely comprehensive. All regions of Portugal are covered, even small villages are described if they have something of interest. And the way places are described is what makes this book so good - the writing is so witty, so apt, that I find myself rereading sections just for the chuckle. The guide includes tons of maps, precise directions, prices for museums, transportation, hotels, restaurants. The directions are oriented towards non drivers - that is, if you are relying on public transportation or your own two feet to get you around Portugal, then this book is excellent. The recommendations are always right on target and I have always found the information to be accurate. There are no color photographs in my edition which doesn't detract at all from the book. However, the new edition does have some nice pictures.

So, my advice to you dear reader is: Visit Portugal - and take your Rough Guide with you!

This story has a lot of twists and turns in it. The main character is Detective Freddie Troy. He starts out with a piece of a body and puts together an rather intricate plot involving the Allied High Command, Russian Spies, Nazi scientists and OSS types.

There are a number of interesting people along the way. Tosca who works for a lot of different people and always seems to have the next clue. Diana Brack, a mysterious woman involved in the caper more than it seems. Jimmy the OSS killer type or so we think. Onions, who is Troy's boss, and a rather cryptic sort.

Troy spends most of the book falling in and out of bed with different ladies, stumbling about in the dark of 1944 London and getting the living snot beat out of him by different folks.

But the novel works of fails on the mounting bits of evidence and much of it shows up just at the right time. An adequate first outing.

This first book in the Troy series left me rather torn. On the one hand, it's a gripping page-turned stuffed with great characters and atmosphere, all set in London just prior to D-Day. On the other hand, the plot relies on so many coincidences and contrivances that one's suspension of disbelief is sorely tested. Like the Berlin detective Bernie Gunther in Phillip Kerr's excellent WWII trilogy (collected as Berlin Noir), Lawton's D.S. Troy is a wonderful character. Born in England to upper class Russian Jewish parents, he doesn't believe in Queen and country, but pursues a broader notion of justice. As a young Scotland Yard whiz-kid, he tries to unravel a series of murders and disappearances tied somehow to former German scientists and the American military.

The downside is-and I give nothing away by saying this-that too many central figures in the story are connected to Troy's personal life. One victim lives above his closest police friend, another is known to his uncle (who just happens to be a scientist working in military research), another central player is known to him from childhood, and another important character has a past history with Troy as well. Not to mention the climax, in which Troy's well connected brother plays a key role. It gets to be rather a lot to ignore, and the worst part is, there isn't really a need for all those connections to be there!

Fortunately, Lawton provides ample detail and atmosphere to keep everything enjoyable. His portrait of the tough conditions in wartime London, and the privileged place of the American military there is striking. Food rationing, bombing raids, dense fog, rubble-strewn streets, tough East End children, it's all highly evocative. Similarly, he provides a picture of England's simmering domestic political situation that will come as a surprise to many American readers. Every character springs to life under Lawton's pen, from Troy's keen subordinate, to his canny superior, to a hooker with a heart of gold, and bluff American officers. My own favorite is the cross-cursing Polish forensics expert.

Coincidences aside, the book is exceedingly well-written, and it's shame Lawton isn't better known in the US. A second Troy book, Old Flames, is set in 1956, a the third, A Little White Death, in 1963-neither of these had yet been published in US.

Since previous reviewers have accurately pin-pointed the shortcomings of the rather contrived plot, let me just add a couple of things in the book's favour.

John Lawton has done his homework in describing life in London during and immediately after World War II. The picture he paints is almost photographic in its accuracy. If Norman Rockwell had been a British author, instead of an American painter, I think this is how he might have written.

With a strong lead character in Detective Sergeant Troy, and some real gems amongst the supporting cast of pro-Communist Russian immigrants, upper class Britons and working class Londoners, carried along by a strong story line, I couldn't ask for much more.

I read the book without knowing that John Lawton was a documentary film maker, but it doesn't surprise me. The book is highly visual and I imagine would make an incredible film

...These are glorious duotone reproductions of vintage printsfrom the Hollywood era.

And after locating a copy of the original1939 edition of Camera Over Hollywood, the achievement of this new edition became clearer to me. The 1939 edition suffers from poor picture editing and a heavy gravure printing that blocks up the beautiful black and white tones of the pictures in this important, behind and in front of the scenes, Hollywood documentary. There is also a coy running commentary in the 1939 edition one could easily dispense with which is just what they did in new edition.

The 2000 edition of Camera Over Hollywood reinterprets the work to reveal the true achievement of Swope that was unfocussed in the original edition. Think of Robert Frank with a sense of humor working Hollywood in 1936 and you get the idea. This is an important book showing us that Swope is truly one of the pioneers of photo-modernist documentary.

Consider the fact that Swope happened to be close friends with both Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda (they all shared a house in the Los Angeles area of Brentwood), a fortuitous connection that, among other things, provided him an amazing insider's view Hollywood. These are amazing pictures of Hollywood made with an artist's vision. No library of photography is complete without this important book.

I was intrigued by the comments of the reader from Laguna Beach who claimed that the reproduction quality of the photographs in John Swope's: Camera Over Hollywood was inferior, until I saw the book. I can't imagine what this person is thinking. These are glorious duotone reproductions of vintage prints from the Hollywood era.

And after locating a copy of the 1939 edition of Camera Over Hollywood, the achievement of this new edition became clearer to me. The 1939 edition is poorly edited and suffers from a heavy gravure printing that blocks up the beautiful black and white tones of this important, behind and in front of the scenes, Hollywood documentary. There is also a coy running commentary with the images one could easily lose.

The new edition of Camera Over Hollywood reedits the work to reveal the true achievement of Swope that was masked in the original edition. Think of Robert Frank with a sense of humor working Hollywood in 1936 and you get the idea. This is an important book showing us that Swope is truly one of the pioneers of photo-modernist documentary.

Consider the fact that Swope happened to be close friends with both Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda (they all shared a house in the Los Angeles area of Brentwood), a fortuitous connection that, among other things, provided him an amazing insider's view Hollywood. These are amazing pictures of Hollywood made with an artist's vision. No library of photography is complete without this important book.

A tremendous collection of never-before seen candid photographs of Hollywood's golden age. Swope's B&W images are so crisp, they look like they were taken yesterday. Amazing stuff! Can't wait for volume 2!

Well, the Python Fellows have done it again! They have produced a book so funny, so rue to nothing, that it could be just a figment of a madman's imagination. If they think that someone will want to buy this book, they are definetly right on, chaps! I hope everyone will buy this book, read it, and then send it to me! (Just kidding!)

This is the companion book to Monty Python's most outrageous film. Great color photos illustrate the script, but the REAL reason to own this is that it is the only place you may ever get to read/see some sequences cut from the film. These are "The Adventures of Martin Luther," in which Jones plays a very randy Martin Luther making the Jewish parents of two young daughters (mother Chapman and father Palin) quite nervous and an extended version of the "Middle Age" sequence featuring Carol Cleveland as a waitress in the Dungeon Room waiting on Idle and Palin. The text to these scenes is what warrants the high rating - otherwise, it's simply a souvenier.

Having taken a spacecraft course that utilized Fortescue and Stark as its primary text, I can say that I thought it was a horrible choice.

While the bulk of the material is an excellent overview of the topic, introducing subject matter in all areas (attitude control, propulsion, orbit manuevers etc.), the theoretical proof in the text leave much to be desired.

The text offers virtually no examples of the math it introduces, and thus, makes it very diffcult to apply any of the information that it presents. It is well developed for almost liberal arts type reading, but I did not feel it served very well as a science and engineering text.

I am about fifteen and I am very interested in engineering, so I bought this book. I will tell you that this has tought me so much about engineering and the importance of math. It contains equations for everything from life support systems to propulsion systems. I would reccomend this for anyone interested in working in the field of spacecraft engineering or just has 70 bucks to spend on an interesting insight into what it takes to build a spacecraft. I have talked to some engineers and they told me that this book will get you on your way to a carrer in this field. It covers all systems and in great detail even if you want to build your own minicraft(science fair, worked too. Well that is all.

An all-poetry anthology, featuring the very best established and up-and-coming contemporary American writers. CONJUNCTIONS:35 American Poetry: States of the Art

FALL, 2000 Edited by Bradford Morrow

Table of contents

John Ashbery, Four Poems

Lyn Hejinian, Two Poems

Myung Mi Kim, Siege Document

Brenda Coultas, Three Poems

Arthur Sze, Quipu

Jorie Graham, Six Poems

Michael Palmer, Three Poems

Mark McMorris, Reef: Shadow of Green

Susan Wheeler, Each's Cot An Altar Then

Ann Lauterbach, Three Poems

Clark Coolidge, Arc of His Slow Demeanors

Gustaf Sobin, Two Poems

Alice Notley, Four Poems

Tessa Rumsey, The Expansion of the Self

Anne Waldman and Andrew Schelling, Two Landscapes

Forrest Gander, Voiced Stops

Tan Lin, Ambient Stylistics

Marjorie Welish, Delight Instruct

Laynie Browne, Roseate, Points of Gold

James Tate, Two Poems

Honor Moore, Four Poems

Leslie Scalapino, From The Tango

Bin Ramke, Gravity & Levity

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Two Poems

Charles Bernstein, Reading Red

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Charles Bernstein, A Dialogue

Rosmarie Waldrop, Five Poems

Martine Bellen, Two Poems

Peter Sacks, Five Poems

Reginald Shepherd, Two Poems

Barbara Guest, Two Poems

Donald Revell, Two Poems for the Seventeenth Century

Paul Hoover, Resemblance

Elaine Equi, Five Poems

Norma Cole, Conjunctions

Jena Osman, Boxing Captions

Ron Silliman, Fubar Clus

John Yau, Three Movie Poems

Melanie Neilson, Two Poems

Robert Kelly, Orion: Opening the Seals

Nathaniel Mackey, Two Poems

C.D. Wright, From One Big Self

Peter Gizzi, Fin Amor

Carol Moldaw, Festina Lente

Charles Norton, Five Poems

Robert Creeley, Supper

Brenda Shaughnessy, Three Poems

Malinda Markham, Four Poems

Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Draft 38: Georgics and Shadow

Nathaniel Tarn, Two Poems

Peter Cole, Proverbial Drawing

Fanny Howe, Splinter

Anne Tardos, Four Plus One K

Robert Tejada, Four Poems

Andrew Mossin, The Forest

Elizabeth Willis, Two Poems

David Shapiro, Two Poems

Camille Guthrie, At the Fountain

Susan Howe, From Preterient

Cole Swensen, Seven Hands

Susan Howe and Cole Swensen, A Dialogue

Keith Waldrop, A Vanity

Will Alexander, Fishing as Impenetrable Stray

Juliana Spahr, Blood Sonnets

Jerome Sala, Two Poems

Leonard Schwartz, Ecstatic Persistence

Catherine Imbriglio, Three Poems

Vincent Katz, Two Poems

Thalia Field, Land at Church City

John Taggart, Not Egypt

Renee Gladman, The Interrogation

Laura Moriarty, Seven Poems

Kevin Young, Film Noir

Jackson Mac Low, Five Stein Poems

Rae Armantrout, Four Poems

Anselm Hollo, Guests of Space

Here comes the new kid on the block, attempting to overthrow Modern Chess Openings (MCO).

Extremely dense, but chock full of new ideas.

Prose explanations are rare.

(Indeed,there are hardly any game references, which makes me wonder if the line is from Kasparov-Karpov, one of the games from the authors, computer analysis, or some guys from the local club!)

But it has all the coverage you would expect of a one-volume opening book.

Should this be the only opening book you buy? No. I find it more interesting to compare lines from MCO and NCO rather than blindly accept one book's version as the final one.

But if you were to _only_ buy this book, you would not be disappointed. You would have to be prepared to play through the lines, and attempt to justify the author's evaluations yourself. You won't get much help from them.

After reading the few reviews, I think that it is not an important issue whether this book is too advanced for novice and club players and only suitable for the serious and professional player. The lines given in this book gives a very good overview of the typical lines and even less well known lines played in the recent years. Just think of it as a good summary of MegaBase from ChessBase.

Bobby Fischer once remarked to a casual player that to improve, one would first pick up a book (which incidently was Modern Chess Openings) and play the moves and the footnotes at least twice from cover to cover. Although this sounds extreme, the point to note is that before a player can even decide on an opening or what the varied openings are like, it is important to have a good idea of what are the typical and nontypical lines that are played nowadays across all openings. One can gain opening ideas from words (such as Fine's Basic chess openings or even Modern Chess Openings). However, this method only provide a superficial coverage of any opening. A more accurate way is to look precisely at the variations involved in each opening and decide FOR YOURSELF which lines are advantageous or not. Bronstein once remarked that many of the past books on openings that stated equality for black is often an understatement that Black has already gain a substantial advantage - meaning that only YOU can decide whether when you attempt a certain variation: Are you just following the crowd or are you thinking by yourself. No doubt, the workload in preparing for your openings will be heavy. The task then is to narrow these openings into a suitable repertoire for yourself (as a function of your style, endgame preferences, etc).

Of course, it helps if you have a chess teacher to do this for you. If not, you can simply follow Fischer's advice and do what many chessplayers are doing nowadays - teaching yourself to improve.

This is the "GrandMaster" of opening books. I am a Master and I teach chess for a living. When my students want to learn an opening, or need a one volume reference for learning new openings, this is the book I recommend to them. A "MUST" for the Postal player! There is more information and fewer mistakes in this book, than any opening compendium I have ever seen! WARNING: If you are a casual chess player, or looking for for a book to help you improve and learn something, this is not the book you seek. This is a book for very serious chess players. If you have never used an opening book before, you will find this book a very difficult "read." Its just lines and recommendations for what is best in the openings. There are a great deal of symbols and lines that end with an evaluation like "White is slightly better." There is nothing that explains why White is better. Unless this type of dialogue would be useful to you, you are better off not buying this book.

The most recent edition of this book would be better called the "approximate" guide to Spain. Much of the information in this book is simply wrong: maps were upside down (north pointing downwards), accomodations recommended were often dirty or unpleasant or much more expensive than the rough guide said or than alternatives we found on our own, descriptions of things such as the entrances to cathedrals and locations of turists offices were wrong, and often instead of recommending specific places the authors just recommended checking with the local turist offices for accomodations and other information -- making us question what the book was good for anyway. I had a much much better experience with the Lonely Planet guides. Do not buy this book if you are looking for help getting around Spain.

This is the only book you will ever need while traveling in Spain. I hope it is sufficient to say that I own the 5th, the 6th, the 7th and the 8th edition of this book. During the past 10 years I visited all regions in Spain and this book has been a excellent help.

This is an excellant travel guide book. It is an essential book for any one traveling to Spain, especially if this is your virgin trip to the country. There is a broad spectrum of choices to choose from, from the very inexpensive to the very expensive. It fills the palette for all tastes. The inexpensive choices give you a taste for the culture and people of the area that you visit and their comments are honest and helpful. I will buy this guide wherever I travel.